The Werewolves of London
by Kira
Summary: A hunt has the boys returning to Chicago, going toe to toe with a pack of entrepreneuring lycans, and finding out that the steel forests of America are home to more than they bargained for when staying alive means breaking a deal with an unforgiving power
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** The Werewolves of London

**Rating:** Hard R (violence, swearing, gore, & gratuitous Dean and Sam whumpage)

**Genre:** Season 1-ish, Gen

**Summary:** A hunt has the boys returning to Chicago, going toe to toe with a pack of entrepreneuring lycans, and finding out that the steel forests of America are home to more than they bargained for when staying alive means breaking a deal with an unforgiving power.

**Really Huge Author's Note:** First, this is a fic started almost six months ago that recently grew some legs thanks to bigpink's recent fic jump-starting my brain. Thanks, dear, and I hope you enjoy.

Koyote's a goddess of the beta variety. Sarah of the supportive, awesome friend and best reader variety.

I wanted to write a gritty, urban, dark fic, drawing the boys out of the small towns of mid-America we're used to seeing them in. And I also wanted to explore more of the **These Crimes of Illusion** "universe" without writing a strictly fae-centric story. This is considered that fic's sequel, but having read that story isn't necessary at all.

* * *

**The Werewolves of London**

_I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic's  
And his hair was perfect  
Ah-oo, Werewolves of London  
Draw blood_

- Warren Zevon, _Werewolves of London_

**Prologue.  
- Now -  
**

It's all dark color and cold breezes, leaves rustling in the wind creating white noise only a forest can appreciate. The whooshing moves through the forest preserve, tunneling through trees and brush, passing wild animals and forgotten items cast away. Must hangs in the air, dirt and decaying leaves on the ground that haven't seen sunlight for months; twigs crunch under their feet, snapping like necks in rapid succession as they race through the trees toward that overpowering scent.

_Blood_. _Sweat. Fear._

They feed off it, draw it in like gray mist, follow it with beating hearts and deep hunger. They _need_ it. It flows through crusted nostrils, down to panting throats and sticks to the tongue. Teasing. Feeding. Keeping them motivated, _alive, _until they can reach the source.

They're parched. Denied what they need, what their instincts tell them to catch, saved by a figure covered in dark shadows, blackness, _evil_, who promises feeding beyond their dreams. Victims -- meals -- served on a silver platter.

Or, in their case, an old, withering Oak near the east edge of the forest preserve.

He varies their locations, though, when he can. Gives them the thrill of the hunt, lets the wind ruffle through their fur, whip past their long ears. The hunt. The kill. Their minds work in that order. Nothing else. No mercy, no morals. Just finding their next meal and enjoying the feeling of teeth sinking into warm flesh, blood dripping down their snouts, until there is nothing left but white bones.

Gleaming, beautiful white bones bleached the color of the moon by their saliva.

Leaves rustle under their paws. The smell is stronger now, intense, and some struggle to stay steady under its influence. So strong. The blood will flow, the skin will stretch against their bites. They _feel_ it.

Moonlight shines like a spotlight -- they're _there_. The entire area is clogged with the overpowering scent of blood, and they move slowly now, creeping up to the figure tied to the tree, hanging there, ready for them. A few feel it is beneath them, to hunt a piece of meat hung up for them, but food is scarce, and they can't risk exposure. Yes. This deal benefits both parties through compromise.

The leader rounds the tree, putting an experimental paw over the line drawn in dead leaves, and feels nothing. It's safe. He didn't go back on his word.

They round the tree, a semi-circle of growling mouths and barred teeth, staring at the man hanging from the tree. Savor the scent for a few more seconds before jumping on the prey.

But their prey's eyes snap open, and a sly smile crosses pale lips.

"Only five of you?" he rasps. "C'mon. I've dealt with worse."

The leader jumps forward, but the prey is faster, pulling up on the bonds looped over the lowest branch to flip up onto it. He lies on his stomach, cries out. Their blood pumps faster, _this is a hunt_. Blood drips down from the branch above, falling on their fur, matting it, until they can stand it no longer.

They jump. The prey swears and scoots father, farther, blood leaking from a wound in his stomach.

This prey will be sweet between their teeth. When they catch him.

**Part One.  
- Before -  
**

**Chapter One.**

"And you made fun of _my_ coffee?"

Sam Winchester slips into an empty chair at a table nestled in the corner of the café and snickers; his brother slides into the chair across from him and spreads the paper out across the table with nothing more than a sneer in his direction. Sam sips on his coffee and attempts to read upside down, but gets caught up on the word "difficulty" -- how's that for irony -- and gives up.

"Seriously, man. I never figured you for a mocha guy," he tries again.

There's a rustle of a page turning, then Dean Winchester glances up at Sam and punctuates his sentence with a point of his finger. "Hey, shut your pie hole. Sometimes a guy just has a sweet tooth." He returns his attention to the paper, but Sam isn't going to let this one go.

"You give me shit every time we get coffee -- "

"What you drink isn't coffee," Dean interrupts flawlessly.

"-- and here you are drinking a _mocha_. With skim milk."

"They were out of regular," Dean defends. "Plus, it's better for my figure."

Sam laughs. "Right. You're a freak, you know that?"

The pages rustle again; Dean continues onto the smaller stories pushed to the back of the newspaper, red pen poised in his right hand, ready to strike at anything out of the ordinary. He flicks the end of the pen towards Sam while green eyes scan back and forth across the page.

"Takes one to know one."

Sam snorts, but wonders when he became comfortable with being labeled as a freak after fighting against it for so long back in college. Two steps forward, three steps back, and now he's sitting at a table in a café debating the finer points of "freakishness" with his brother. Perhaps it's learning from example; Dean's self-proclamation of his own status as less-than-normal had finally gotten through Sam's shell and parked itself right next to normal under the birch tree he'd sat under with Jess between classes.

He sips his coffee and ruminates over _that_ while Dean circles stories with that red pen, wide, unclosed circles like their lives, surrounding things they should never see; leaving an opening to escape they'll never take. A few catch Dean's attention on one page; he flips to the next, finger from his other hand holding his place, and starts over, scanning through obituaries.

"Anything interesting?" Sam asks when his cup's half-empty -- or half-full? He doesn't know anymore.

Dean looks up after circling a few obituaries, a flick of hazel eyes that raise his forehead. "Eh, a few hauntings, some deaths in Massachusetts that look odd, but," -- he shrugs -- "they're just unsolved."

"So, nothing, then."

"Nope." Dean takes a sip of his mocha and makes a face before holding it out in front of him and examining the cup. "Uug. How can you stand this crap?"

"It's an acquired taste."

"And what?" he asks, giving it another experimental taste before putting it down on the table. "They give you a course at college?"

"You can only drink straight coffee so many late nights in a row," Sam replies. Dean shakes his head and stands, chair pushing out behind him with a screech of metal against flooring.

"That is totally not true. Want it?"

Sam takes the cup. "Yeah. I'll drink it in the car."

Dean mutters something that sounds a lot like 'pussy' while walking to the counter; Sam resists the temptation to throw an insult back. Dean's left the newspaper open on the table along with the pen, and ever since Sam can remember, he's always thought anything his brother does is cool, even now. He snatches up the paper and the pen, holds it just as Dean does, and starts skimming.

Three stories later, the paper's snatched up from under his bowed head and hits him on the nose.

"You do the research, I read the paper," Dean says, resettling the paper while drinking a cup of regular, dark coffee.

"Look on page 8," Sam replies, ignoring the jab. _Of course_ they have clearly defined roles, and you don't cross that line. "Police found a collection of bleached -- "

"Bones," Dean interrupts. "I can read, Sam."

"Could have fooled me."

Dean growls, but keeps his eyes on the paper. "Huh."

"What?"

"Dating has these bones as less than six months old." Dean points to the paper, and Sam leans over the table to attempt reading upside down again. "Pop quiz: what bleaches bones at the time of death?"

Sam groans this time, and shakes his head while wearing an incredulous smile. "No. We're not ready to take on something like _this_ without dad."

"And here I never thought I'd hear you say that."

"Everyone has their limits, Dean, even us."

"You don't think we can take this on?" Dean asks, leaning over the paper, elbows crinkling it. "C'mon, Sammy. With all we've done already? Should be a piece of cake."

"This isn't some backwater town in the middle of nowhere we can lie our way into; there's a reason Dad kept us away from big cities. There are too many people around who can ask questions," Sam says, shaking his head. "Not to mention the cops aren't apt to listen to our cause."

"Apt?" Dean repeats with a smirk. Sam opens his mouth to explain his reasoning but Dean cuts him off with a crisp single shake. "Less likely? Hell, no, but last time I checked, these things didn't have to live somewhere where it's easy to hunt them. Making our lives easier isn't something they strive to do, Sam. "

Arguing philosophically isn't in his brother's make-up, and Sam sighs, dropping his head into his hand. Sideways, Dean doesn't look half as mean as he tries to, that sharp gaze almost lost from the angle Sam's looking at him from. He appears, for a moment, just as tired as Sam feels, and adjusts his mask to compensate for Sam's new perspective.

They both know this isn't something they can just walk away from, and if it weren't for the growing body count, Sam would be for leaving this to someone else out there with the same unmarketable talents as them.

That is, if there were any. But then, wouldn't they have the same preoccupation about working and hunting in a city as him? Were those attacked by creatures lurking in the shadows of tall buildings in urban sprawls just damned to such a worrisome existence? People in cities died every day; by man or beast, did it really matter?

Sam snorts, if only in his head; of course not. Police could hunt men, but what of those things they couldn't - or didn't want to - explain? Wasn't that their job, what they were raised to do?

In the end, didn't responsibility in any form just suck? There was still a bit of fatalistic twenty-something sensibility in him, despite how aged by what he'd seen and experienced might have aged him.

"Hey, lighten up," says Dean, idly stirring his coffee with one of those wooden sticks he'd once used, in a bind, to take out a particularly nasty spirit form a few years past. "We've worked that city before; should be a piece of cake if we still have those polyester uniforms you picked up for us last time we were there."

"Just because you and Dad didn't use them doesn't mean disguises aren't useful," Sam intones.

"No," Dean almost groans, "Just stupid-looking. You're the dork, not me," he says, pointing between them at the table. "So why do I have to wear the outfits?"

Sam smirks. "Because not ever con artist can be as flattering as you."

"Damn straight. You ought to keep that in mind."

"Lycans are _never_ a piece of cake," Sam points out. "Even for dad. Do I need to remind you where you got that scar on your calf?"

"I know how I got it. I was twelve. I'd like to think I've grown up since then."

Sam laughs, causing his brother to frown.

"What?"

"Dean, you have the maturity of a fourteen year old."

"Do not."

But the way he says it _is_ like a kid, and Sam remembers that sometimes, he's the older one in this relationship. "Whatever, man. We're not taking it."

Dean's a stubborn man, has been since he turned six and his little brother was suddenly old enough to steal his toys. He hasn't changed much over the years, so when he stands and pulls his jacket off the back of the chair, Sam's not so much surprised as annoyed.

"Dean..."

"Daylight's a-wasting, Sam. Move it or lose it."

--

Twenty miles outside Philadelphia, Sam starts staring at the mountains in the distance. They're colored green by thick, lush evergreens, their colors spanning all variations he can think of, some dipping into the sun for pale golds, or dark browns where trees have died and only the thick trunk remains. He spies for shifts in the leaves, clearings where they shouldn't be -- anything out of the ordinary in the way fear distorts shadows and converts sounds.

Not that he's afraid.

It's not classic fear, not fear of the unknown, or fear of a creature he's never seen. Lycanthropes don't _frighten_ Sam, per se. He is frightened, instead, by the idea of going in on this one without enough experience, of facing something they shouldn't be without a few more months on the road, a little more time with successful hunts, less bruises and blood.

The mountains give no indication as to if shape shifting animals are lurking in the forests, and it almost angers him.

But it's misdirected anger. Dean's thick-headed decision only proves Sam's theory that his older brother's constantly trying to prove himself -- to himself, to Sam, to their father, to the world in general. If he fights enough, kills enough, perhaps the darkness will retreat and give a moment of sunshine.

Humans can't live without sunlight.

"We're going to be fine," Dean says out of the blue. He pulls down his visor and shifts it against the window to block out the dying sun, and Sam sighs to himself; if there was one human on the planet trying to prove sunlight wasn't important to life, it would be his brother.

"Nothing to worry about, right? We'll just go in, take care of the problem, and, what? Hope we get out of there alive?" Sam shakes his head. "You do remember that lycanthropy is _infectious_, right?"

"Yeah. Remember how we found out?"

"That's why I don't get this, Dean." He is used to his brother _making sense_, at least in some warped, twisted way he can figure out a few seconds after his brain revolts against the lack of logic. Aren't they supposed to work together, _decide _together which jobs to take and which to pass on?

"What's there to get?" Dean asks, chancing a side-glance at Sam before turning his eyes back to the winding interstate. "These things are out there killing people, and the cops aren't going to figure it out. Usual gig. Except these, we know how to hunt and kill."

It's the same speech Sam gets whenever he questions the motives behind choosing a particular hunt, driving east instead of west where he _knows_ their father is waiting. Dean's nobility is admirable, but Sam finds himself trailing behind when it comes to hunting for the sake of others. To him, the hunt is a simple connect-the-dots game between Point A, the here and now, and Point B, the death of the demon who's killed too many important people in his life.

With Dean, he's taking serpentine turns to all points in-between, looping up and around and down and back again to touch upon the straight line before veering off again. Sam lives for those glimpses of the line he feels compelled to follow.

But this hunt's way off near Point Z, where they have no business to go. It's so far off the map, they're driving blind, navigating canyons when they should be on hills.

"Even if the cops take away their hunting ground," Dean continues suddenly, softer, more reflective than before when his voice carried that authoritative edge learned from their father, "they'll move on. Go somewhere else and start hunting again. Or maybe they'll resort to mauling."

"As revenge against the humans for forcing them out," Sam fills in the blank.

"Bingo."

He can't find an argument against going; people will continue to die unless the lycanthropes are stopped, and when they've found a prosperous and secluded area, that only happens by force.

Dean guns the engine and races faster down the open road. The hills surrounding them feel like they're watching the black car as it speeds towards its destination with giant eyes of green and brown.

--

Driving anywhere from 18 to 24 hours straight through the night isn't considered odd, at least in their family. Dean's practically mastered the art of driving without so much as a bathroom break, surviving on a steady diet of sugar and coffee and loud, speaker-busting rock from before either of them were born. After months of cruising America in the passenger seat of his brother's car, Sam's mastered his own art; he lets his head fall in the now-familiar groove between the door and the seat and watches the scenery fly by. Counts the poles beside the road, the seconds between each, and practices his rusty math skills by trying to compute how fast they're going, and what the fine would be if Dean got a ticket.

When the sun sets in front of them, a mixture of pinks and oranges and just a hint of flaming red, he gives up his game and returns to the world as best he can in the blanketing wrap of the Impala; memories written on every inch of the interior, and twice in some places. The satellite card for his laptop was a good investment; while Dean drums his heart out on the steering wheel, Sam looks up the biggest newspapers in Chicago and a few national publications for good measure and begins to read.

Ever since he could read, Sam's love of all things strange and bloody has been restricted to one place - fiction. At ten, he was the youngest patron of the local library's true crime section, and he often finds escape in the crimes of the normal world. He speaks to them, hears them talk back when he scoffs at a witness's terror when the killer was only a man and not a monster. It has desensitized him to the goriness of the research he's been doing since the rest of his family realized he's steadier with words and research then a crossbow (though he's certainly worked on improving his marksmanship ever since Dean teased him about being a useless giant). Reading through the newspaper articles sooths him just as the music vibrating the car brings a sort of serene comfort to Dean as he drives.

The first he finds is the original article summarized in the USA Today he read at the coffee place back in Pennsylvania. Angela Ashbury, 26, found dead in her apartment two days after last being seen at her job on the city's north side. She was only identifiable by dental records, as her body had completely disappeared, leaving only a neat pile of bleached bones in the center of her studio apartment. The police, as expected, are completely baffled what could possibly bleach human bones and completely dissolve all the tissue connected to them without leaving a trace in the apartment. Theories of how the killer moved chemicals and storage containers in and out without being seen or heard are driving the investigation. Dean is right - no way they'd think of Lycanthropes and their acidic saliva.

Which leaves this up to them. Not that Sam will admit that.

The next, calling the string of deaths the 'White Murders' because of the clean bones, was of 24 year old Aaron Haskle, a student at one of the South Loop's many colleges and universities. Body found in an alleyway under the city's elevated train lines. At first, they were thought to be the picked over remains from one of the nearby restaurants. The poor and homeless often hang around in the area due to the high population of naive college students. It was only after a member of the crime scene unit identified one of the bones as a fibula that dental records were referenced and the bones declared as those of the missing student.

"Huh," he mutters. It doesn't make any sense. The two victims lived ten miles apart - lycans typically stuck to a small area, and in a city as densely populated as Chicago, Illinois, there wouldn't be a need for them to spread out in order to find new kills.

"What?" Dean asks over the music. Sam reaches forward and turns it down before explaining.

"I've only read over two so far," he starts, the glow from his laptop lighting his face and reflection in the dark windshield. "But they were over five miles apart. You ever heard of a pack moving that much just for --"

"Only when there weren't many people around. But hell, Chicago's huge." He doesn't readjust the music; eyes straight ahead, but only seeing the road through the haze of thought. "Either someone's telling them what to do --"

"Not good," Sam interrupts.

" - or they've gotten smart."

"Really not good. Still think this is something we can handle on our own?" Sam says.

His brother smirks. "Course. Can't let them get ahead of the learning curve or whatever it is. Damn, will you look at that."

Sam shuts the laptop on his lap and looks up. Coming in from the south, along 1-94, up into the city is a breathtaking view in the clear calm of late winter. The haze of overcast clouds has cleared, for once, affording a clear view of the cloister of tall buildings marking the Loop, lit with colored antennas thumbing at the sky. Atop the Sears Tower, twin antennas that send out most of the city's radio and television signals still wear lights of red and green, leftovers from a warm Christmas season.

"Forgot how nice civilization could look," Dean comments almost wistfully.

While Sam has no memories of their life in Lawrence, he can appreciate Dean's connection between a city and normal, regular life; living under the shadow of Kansas City, so close the two cities blend together, has left marks he never considered.

The Interstate merges together with local by-passes and arteries into the city. Large blocks of chipped concrete sitting behind orange mesh fences mark off the work zones on either side of redirected traffic. There are no workers this late at night, though their trucks sit in a cluster off to the right near the sign marking the city's official boundary. Large lights sit on uneven pieces NX of road, cords waiting to be plugged in. Chicago lives for rush hour, and while traffic flows somewhat slowly, it's nothing compared to the congestion that will come with the first burst of early-morning commuters in a few hours. Work on the roads is done by spotlight, and they begin to flick on the further they get into the city.

"Where was the first attack?" Dean asks, all business. The radio's off now, along with the finger tapping Dean does when passing the time. He takes a swig of coffee -- three hours old and ice cold -- and affords Sam a glance.

"North side, the neighborhood's called Ravenswood," reports Sam. Dean nods. "And the second, south, right?"

"Thinking the middle somewhere?" Sam intones, picking up on Dean's train of thought.

"As long as it's not that dump we stayed in last time," jokes Dean, but there's an involuntary shiver under all that sarcasm and bravado, the memory of their last visit to the city not one either would like to re-hash, especially the fight heard round the world once safely outside the city limits.

There are numerous hotels and motels within the city of Chicago, and several outside the limits that boast cheaper rooms, but they're all the same no matter where you go. The road twists into the Loop, so Dean pulls off to the left and follows the road, deciding someplace off the old road connecting Chicago to Milwaukee, US 41, would be a good place to find a motel that didn't ask many questions.

The sign says weekly rates and free color TV, a place card that probably hasn't been replaced for at least ten years, but it serves their purpose.

In and out. The city makes Dean's skin crawl, and he doesn't want to be there any longer than he has to.

--

Fresh blood.

There is no mistaking the enticing aroma of bitter copper mixed with the sweetness of palpable adrenaline; the way it mixes with the blood pumping though the veins of prey -- there are no words, at least not in the language of men -- it's almost erotic, awakening all senses and pulling from them a pleasure felt only when fucking; and even then, the scent of sweat mucks everything up. But sweet, fresh blood, a gleaming red waterfall splashing from the still-pumping veins of swollen meat…

Thinking of it brings moans of pleasure from his throat, deep, guttural, animal moans; his back arches from the plush velvet chair, eyes closed against muted lights, thoughts controlling his body. There's a shift deep inside; his eyes pop open, wide, dark pupils dilated against rings of gold. So close, he came so close to losing control ...

A hand bushes his shoulder. "Thinking too hard, Erick?" Plopping down on the edge of the loveseat next to him, Nicolas looks smug, long, thin mouth pulled up into a sneer Erick finds horribly enticing, and he looks away before Nicolas can pull him into his bed again. Once was -- he could lose it again recalling those memories.

Nicolas laughs.

"Shut the fuck up," Erick tries in his angriest voice. It causes Nicolas to laugh harder; Erick isn't a dominant, isn't the one who controls but the one controlled.

"Oh, Erick," he coos, sliding over onto the arm of the velvet chair, a hand around Erick's shoulders before he can react. "Your time will come."

"Sure," he scoffs.

Nicolas grabs his face and turns him towards him. "It will. Sooner than you think." His voice is soft, intimate, and Erick doesn't defend or back up when Nicolas moves in to capture his lips in a soft kiss.

It doesn't beat the arousal of fresh blood, but it comes close.

Nicolas is dark and smooth, soft, and fits perfectly with Erick's need for tenderness over a pure fuck. It's how he became such a submissive to Nicolas; the first time he saw him outside in the park, paws covered in the hardening dark red of spent blood, the scent of a kill in the air, he walked up and laid down, riding the waves of acceptance while they changed to men and back to beast under the piercing light of the full moon.

Now, in the corner of Nicolas's nightclub near the shaking L tracks, he looks for a mate to ease his troubled senses. Nightmares drove him from his bed, dark shadows and worn faces of men he knows will bring only blood -- blood of his kind, of the lycans -- and he knew these take out those predictive dreams, those, like the one of his mother's death at the hand of what he'd become, that will come to pass. While he'd been sitting there, waiting for Nicolas to return from a hunt, Erick debated telling him; he had been close to a solution when the smell of blood fresh from a hunt had interrupted his thoughts. But hadn't Nicolas done so much for him? Saved him from a life as an outcast, confused about his place in the world? Showed him who he was and what he was capable of? Didn't he deserve to know?

Yes.

When Erick pulls away, Nicolas recoils, hurt. Erick reaches out to him, grasps his hands and slides off the chair to kneel at his feet. "No, don't look hurt," he pleads, "I just need to tell you something. Promise you won't hate me."

"I could never hate you," Nicolas says.

Erick takes a deep breath. "My dream," he says with wavering confidence.

"My dream showed men coming to kill us. Men who know what we are, who believe as so many do not, of our existence. Nicolas, I don't want to die. I don't want things to change. I couldn't bear being out there without you."

Soft shock covers Nicolas's features, and he kneels to look Erick in the eyes. "What do you mean, your dreams, Erick? Do they come true?"

A soft nod, as if he were capable of anything harsh or sharp. "Yes. Always. And I'm afraid this one will, too."

There's a shift, rustling of covers, snorted snore. Erick looks up at the ceiling, eyes wide. "Nicolas, they can see us. Now, they can see -- "


	2. Chapter 2

_Sorry for taking so long to update! The first few chapters came out quickly, but I hit a wall and JUST got past it this afternoon, so here's the next chapter. :)_

_ I haven't replied to comments yet, so expect to get those either tonight or tomorrow morning. I love each and every one of you, my dear readers. _

* * *

**Chapter Two.**

A string of curses breaks through Sam's vision, several surprising combinations he's never heard; his brother's a wordsmith with the kind of words you can't use in an expository essay. Sam shoots up in bed and scans his surroundings, afraid that during his dream, they'd shifted and become those of the players on the stage of his seriously altered mental perception. In the darkness, he can make out Dean with all the same angles and curves he's had for years stumbling around near the bathroom.

Leaning over, Sam clicks on the lamp.

"Right," Dean grumbles, "have that geek mind even when you just woke up. I get it."

A bit amused, Sam shrugs off Dean's half-asleep thought and rubs his face. Odd dreams are one thing, but the subject aware of the dream's existence? Of his unwilling part as audience member? Does that mean he has somehow tapped into the present, or is seeing the future? The past? Sam groans into his hands, frustrated, and flops back down onto his pillow.

"Dude," Dean remarks, now somewhere in the vicinity of his own queen bed, "Bad dream or something?"

"Just realized you might not be the only crazy one in this family."

"Oh," breathes Dean, then, "Hey, I'm not crazy."

Sam rolls his eyes. His brother could be so oblivious sometimes.

"So, bad dream?" he asks, finally.

Sam nods. "Bad dream."

"Sucks. Want to tell me about it or should I check the closet to make sure there aren't any monsters in there?" Dean smirks.

"You're so funny," Sam deadpans, gripping the edge of the bed's extra pillow.

"You're the one who used to ask," says Dean. The pillow lobbed at him from across the room is easily dodged, leaving both laughing at the silly innocence of childhood. Sam wonders if those in his dream once acted like this, but if his window into the man's thoughts were any indication -- well, he wouldn't be doing anything like that with the other person in the room.

The thoughts sober him enough for Dean to take notice. "Seriously, we got to worry about this one?"

"Yeah," Sam says. He twists and sits up to face Dean; both lean over the edges of their beds, feet above ground like they are floating in the ocean -- when these nights come, the distance is clear despite mutual hope that Sam's dreams won't come between them.

"So spill already. I could be asleep," Dean points out. It's not much, but there's that undercurrent of weary support Sam's gotten all his life, even when he decided to cross the country and attend college.

Past sacrifices for him not forgotten, Sam relents despite wanting the images out of his head. "They knew."

"What?"

"That we're here to stop them? That I could hear what they were saying?"

But it's less a question of fact than a question needing lies.

They come as a scoff. "Didn't think it worked that way," Dean says. "You really think they knew you were seeing 'em? What if someone was there outside your vision." He at least holds the wince out of his voice, more sleepless nights giving him ample time to practice.

"That's the thing," Sam says. "The guy, he has the same kind of dreams. Like that connected us somehow. I could," -- and here he makes a face -- "hear his thoughts."

"And that's never happened before?"

"I'd remember if it did, trust me. Someone else's head is not a nice place to be."

Dean smiles. "Nice to know I don't have to worry about that talent invading my thoughts."

"Like I'd want to."

Dean tips the side of his head. "Don't know; there's some good shit up here."

"He said men were coming to kill them, and he was worried it was going to happen. That we knew about them like no one else has noticed them and their ah, differences." He recounts the dream to Dean, flashback and all, taking solace in knowing he's not the only one with some of Erick's more risqué memories running through his head. If Dean's faces are any indication, he's a little squicked out, and the pillow thrown at him comes back to Sam near the end.

"Damn lycans are weird-ass creatures. Can you imagine a dude actually being so ... like a damn pussy?"

"Oddities aside," Sam manages, "how do we investigate when they know we're coming?"

"Same as before. Except now, we don't have to be sneaky. If the bastards know we're here, why not give 'em a show?"

--

Crime scene photos litter the desk, glossy black and white snapshots of bones -- no blood, those telltale pools of dark grey he's used to seeing splattered around a body -- no body, just a neat stack of perfectly clean bones so white they could be mistaken for fakes stolen from a high school's biology classroom. Feet angle off near the edges of the photos, hardened men baffled by a crime they can't explain, leaking details to the press usually kept quiet to lure out a theory concise enough to stop the nightmares. What could have possibly happened to these people? Who or what is capable of doing such a horrible thing?

Sam doesn't have such reservations -- unlike the police and a stunned public, he knows exactly what is out there, killing at random and leaving small mounds of remains.

Lycanthropes.

Of all the creatures chronicled both in literature, memoir, and their father's journal, only one had the ability to melt human flesh but not the bone. Their saliva, excreted while feasting on whatever they caught, broke down complex enzymes to help them better digest their food. It also helped separate what could be eaten -- flesh, muscle, fat -- from what couldn't.

The table's small, carved by countless visitors with knives and ball-point pens alike, initials, simple shapes, long slashes; it tells it's story every time Sam's hand rests upon it, elbow, as he reads articles and police reports on his laptop. It's mind-numbing work; interesting, but repetitive. Dean flicks his Zippo open and closed against the fabric of his jeans. Click, clank. Over and over again, his eyes wandering over the pictures in search of clues.

Click, clack. Sam rubs his eyes and pinches his nose, headache lurking behind closed eyes, the unfortunate side effect of seeing what most couldn't. Shouldn't. Sharp pain doesn't mark it – dull, thudding pain, the kind that taps him dry of energy without any exertion. Click, click, clack. The words on the screen blur, not from fatigue, but frustration.

"Dean," he says in a sharp bark. Doesn't look up or move, but flicks his eyes to peer over the screen at his brother.

Click. "What?" Doesn't look up either, sifts through the pictures with his left hand. Clack.

"Will you," – click – "stop that?" he says.

"Stop what?" But his tone's light, amused, and a smile's on his face; Sam can see the edges of his bowed head. He flicks the lighter a few times, awaiting Sam's answer –

The chair legs are swept out from under him before he's noticed Sam's not sitting across from him anymore, but now stands above him. Dean lands hard on his back, winces, and growls – it's the only warning Sam gets before Dean rolls off the chair and sweeps at his brother's feet, taking the lanky giant down. Before he can get away, Sam grabs an ankle and pulls; Dean catches himself with his hands before his face slams into the floor, reaches over, and tries to get a hold on one of Sam's arms.

"Out of practice?" Sam asks with a grin, scooting away from Dean.

Dean rolls, gets a hand on Sam's shoulder, and pins him to the ground. "You wish," he huffs, smiling inches from Sam's face. A knee comes up, but he's expecting that – it's what Sam used to get the upper hand that night in Palo Alto when Dean found it way too easy to sneak into his brother's apartment.

Sam changes his tactic. Reaches with one of his hands and tickles Dean's ankle.

Dean scuttles off Sam, pockets his Zippo, and is seated in his righted chair so fast, it leaves Sam clutching his stomach from laughing so hard.

"It's not funny," Dean grumbles, back to the pictures and their neat piles. "And not my fault my nerves are all, you know."

Still laughing, Sam squeezes out a tear. Ever since he first discovered his big brother was ticklish almost everywhere at the age of three, it's been his best weapon against brotherly scuffles.

Years of hunting with guns and knives and machetes, of seeing ghosts and bodies and mutilated corpses, and the Winchester boys can eat greasy burgers over the photos without a second thought. Ketchup drips onto one of the photos, adding a splash of much-needed color; Dean wrinkles his nose, grabs it, and tries his best to wipe it off and licks his finger.

Sam, baffled a bit, shakes his head. "Man," he says.

"Huh?" Dean asks, innocent, what did I do wrong? "So, we've got six dead and some newspapers competing for who can use the biggest letters on the front page."

One of the papers, using large block letters to announce the newest victim in the string of deaths, no photos needed – journalists may have a different style but are no less able to draw graphic and succinct images with words – sits under their mess. Even with his experience, Sam finds himself simultaneously enthralled and disgusted by the crimes. The degree these lycans are going to only has him wondering why now? Six deaths over four months; where had they come from and why had they decided to come here, where their crimes would certainly become national news?

"A distraction," Sam finishes his thought out loud. What better way to keep attention away from what they're really doing then by making themselves known, loud and clear? Wasn't that what him and Dean were doing? "That's got to be the reason why they're being so obvious."

"About their MO, yeah," Dean agrees. "Look here," – he pulls a picture from the pile while taking a bite of his burger – "They all are put out the same, right? Notice anything here?"

Leaning in, Sam takes a closer look at the photo. It's another devoid of color, good and evil hidden in shades of grey where the faces of officers appear near the edges. And like the others, the bones are piled in the center of someone's living room, buried in their home instead of the ground. Killed, but not buried. He's about to chalk it up to another one of Dean's little practical jokes when his finger brushes the glossy print over a perfect –

Wait a second.

"There's a notch in the bone," he says, looking up.

"Think that's from some messed up doctor's visit?"

"Why would lycans need to incapacitate their victim?" Sam asks.

A gulp of pop, then, "They wouldn't. Bigger thing: why this one and none of the others?"

--

Angela Ashbury was last seen by her coworkers at a north side bookstore not too far from the thrift shop where they'd picked up their "costumes" last time the Winchesters saw Chicago. It wasn't unusual for Angela to disappear for a few days here and there; apparently, things with her boyfriend were getting serious, and she'd often spend days at his place without notice. The clerk on duty, a tall girl with bubblegum pink hair and more holes in her ears than space for earrings, answers their questions with a thick Boston accent and a mouthful of gum.

"Yeah, I saw her the day before she disappeared," she said, "but I already told the police all this shit. Can't you just, I don't know, talk to the pigs?"

Sam takes her side-step in stride. "Was there anyone hanging around the store? Anyone with a particular interest in Angela?"

"Angie?" she laughs. "Naw. Angie didn't bring her personal life in here. Didn't even let us meet her boyfriend when he came up and surprised her on her birthday. Ushered him outside and took her fifteen. Bitch took thirty and didn't hear squat from the boss. I go over by a minute and he's feeding me my head on a platter."

"You know how long she was seeing this guy?" Dean asks.

"Long? She didn't really talk about him, you know? Just said she liked to hang out there cause it was close to a few bars she liked. Girl couldn't walk straight after one drink; we took her out one time and she was a total lightweight. Why would someone like that have favorite bars?" She leans in close and snaps her gum. "I think it was an excuse. Bet he was some rich, controlling guy who didn't like her being out of his sight."

"Yeah," Dean fake-laughs. "So, no one around and she disappeared all the time. Great. Thanks."

"Asshole. You're the one with the questions. Let the cops figure this one out. Nosey fucks." She turns away from them and picks her nails while examining a poster on the wall. Conversation over. Dean scoffs and takes a step forward to give her a piece of his mind; Sam shakes his head and herds him out of the store.

He grumbles -- since when were people so damn rude? A definite downside to working in larger towns and cities: the preclusion for people to just not give a shit when someone's killed. At least in smaller communities, people care if one of their own is found dead. Such a blasé attitude towards victims is something Dean's never been able to understand -- call him big hearted when it came to saving people, but is valuing the life of a stranger, a human being, something of the past?

Walking down the street in stride with Sam's shortened steps, he can't help but remember one of his numerous ex-girlfriends, who, during a fight, threw a vase at his head and asked why he could be so chivalrous with others, but completely ignore her for days on end. Yeah, that relationship ended, another casualty of his never-ending sarcasm. Who was it who said sarcasm was the recourse of a weak mind, cause he shielded himself with it so often, he had to be weak at heart.

Just so long as Sam never catches on, he'll be okay. Imagine that, the kid discovering the guy he's looked up to all his life is really an angry, damaged low-life who only pretends to have it all together.

Thank God Sam prefers to stay in and read or something when Dean wanders off to get a drink.

"I've got a bad feeling about this guy Angela was seeing," he says, needing escape from ever-darkening thoughts. "You think she was scared of him, or ashamed?"

"Huh?" Sam frowns.

"Didn't let her coworkers see him, never talked about him. C'mon. Either she was scared he'd smack her around or didn't want people to know what kind of an asshole she was dating," he explains, running a hand through his hair -- nervous tick. He'd had plenty of experience with the latter of his two theories; ever since high school, he'd been the shaming boyfriend who never got to meet the parents or friends. Just good for a lay and maybe a night on the wild side. Did wonders for his self-esteem.

But he doesn't say any of that. Lets his eyes wander down the street and up the sides of old brick buildings struggling to remain important in the shadows of newer, better versions. It's a bit cold, a constant wind following even when they turn the corner and head a different direction, but not too bad. He's been in worse places.

"She wouldn't spend all that time with him if he was abusive," Sam thinks aloud. "Plus, no one mentioned any bruises or anything -- why do you think it has to do with the boyfriend?"

Dean shrugs. "Dunno."

"You okay?"

It's only supposed to work one way -- something bugs Sam, Dean extracts it from him, gives him some sage-like advice, and that's it. No need to go diving into the depths of his own mind -- there's a bottomless ocean swirling there and Sam doesn't want to get his feet wet -- won't. Dean protects him from that, gives a wry smile, and wonders why cities always get him analyzing his own inadequacies.

"Always."

--

Twilight.

Soon, it will be time to sleep. To fall into that oh so susceptible state where dreams invade and steal control, when visions – source unknown – can slither in and slowly take over. It's a double-edged sword; visions help save people, help prevent a monster from continuing it's rampage, but they also come too late sometimes and give images of a person's death so graphic, they never are forgotten.

The last rays of sunlight disappear beneath the horizon and the city goes into it's second wind; streetlamps switch on, white lights decorate the trees, and the streets are bathed in hazy yellow light that leaks down to the sidewalks of the south loop.

Here, everything's yellow – old, sick, faded. It's an area just outside the gleaming towers of the downtown district, forgotten and abandoned as people moved north during the 1960's. Now, college students inhabit it like bees in a hive, always seen in the bars and shops with vintage shirts and ripped up jeans, and new condo developments are taking parcels of land and trying to build up an attractive area.

The wind is the same as anywhere else, though, perhaps stronger this close to the lake.

Light coats in celebration of a warm winter are proven woefully inadequate, but neither is the type to complain. Hands dug deep into pockets, coat zipped to the neck, Sam tries not to think about midnight, when, after a beer and some bad late-night TV, he usually pretends to fall asleep so Dean will actually go to bed. And then he does fall asleep -- he doesn't want to think about what might happen.

Two of the victims were college kids, roommates staying in an apartment down on Printer's Row found as piles in front of a second-hand couch. With classes in session, the two streets making up the last remains of Chicago's old printing district are crawling with smoking twenty-somethings, most of them with the same dopey haircuts as Sam; as they near the group, he realizes him and Dean could probably blend in with these people, no problem.

Dean slows a bit, an uncommon deference to Sam usually marking a situation he doesn't know how to deal with. Considering how personable Dean is and despite his various flaws, Sam's never figured out why Dean let Sam take the lead when dealing with college students. No one takes special notice of them, reaffirming the blending-in theory, so Sam stops in front of a few, and, hoping for that oft-spoken about psychic link between siblings, elbows Dean in the side.

He coughs, surprised, and glances up at Sam, who motions as subtly as he can to the smokers, cause there's no way he can make this look believable.

"Hey, uh, can I bum one from someone?" he asks. A few guys look up, but it's a nearby girl who holds out a cigarette and a lighter. Dean takes the smoke but flicks open his own lighter and lights it with practiced ease. He might be playing a part, but as he takes a long inhale, Sam suspects this isn't the first time his brother's smoked.

"You two new?" one of the guys asks.

"Yeah," Sam answers while Dean practices making smoke rings. "Transfers for the spring semester. Almost didn't come, though."

"Cause of Jimmy and Rick?" the girl says.

Dean takes another puff, then flicks ash off onto the sidewalk and lets the cigarette dangle between his fingers at his side. "That their names? The two guys who got killed?"

"Yeah. Hacked up by some psycho motherfuckers," one says.

"They were good guys. Always let someone crash at their place, drink their beer."

"Their beer," one laments.

"Jimmy was a wicked guitar player. Was going to start a band and everything – had flyers up all over campus."

"Asking for some players?" Dean asks. "Get any hits?"

"Just some guy down Roosevelt, bass player, I think. They were supposed to have their first rehearsal the night they – "

"Don't you say it!" the girl exclaims, throwing her cigarette out into the street. "They'd be alive if you hadn't made me go to that stupid fucking concert!" She storms off, voice wavering and eyes tearing up, and slams the door to the nearby form with enough force, a half-asleep kid jolts awake and throws a few swears her way.

"What's with her?" asks Dean. The cigarette's half gone; past convincing into enjoyment.

"She was the singer; didn't show up to rehearsal."

"Blames herself."

"Yup, yup," the two remaining guys say in unison. They're almost finished and so is Dean; he flicks the butt to the ground and mashes it under a steel toe.

"Thanks, guys," Sam says with a nod of the head. They nod back and push off the windowsill they'd been sitting on and walk inside, probably off to console their friend. Once out of earshot, Dean whacks Sam on the back of the head.

"What the hell?" Sam demands, rubbing his head.

"Those things are gross," Dean explains.

"Oh, c'mon, you totally enjoyed it," Sam half-whines. "What happened to that tough guy in high school?"

"Dad punched my face in," Dean says. "Good way to kick a habit."

Sam smirks. "Right."

"Think Jimmy wrote down the name of that guy, kept it in his place?" Dean says, changing the subject from his brief tenure as a smoker and the less-than-ideal way of quitting. At the end of the block, they stop and look at each other in the yellow light.

"We've got three victims, two of which knew guys that no one else knew. That can't be a coincidence," Sam works out. "Jimmy was desperate for a bass player, and Angela for a boyfriend – maybe that's how they're choosing them."

"There's got to be a lot of desperate people in this city, Sammy," Dean replies. "Easy picking. Up for a little breaking and entering?"

--

When he sees them, alive and real and now, it's through the front window of Jimmy and Rick's second floor apartment around the corner from the dorm building.

Sam had been turning, rounding the couch to see if anything relevant was behind it, when he caught something in the corner of his eye. They're standing on the sidewalk on the other side of the street, tall and dressed in long black jackets, eyes an eerie gold that catches that sickly yellow of old streetlights and gives them a glow. The appearance of their quarry so close, so knowing, right across the street, has him transfixed.

He falls forward into Nicolas's eyes, headfirst into that enticing gold, the center black and sticky like quicksand that won't let him go. He's stuck, frozen, unable to move, head swirling – dizzy, now, shrieking a warning he doesn't know – why? Just gold and sticky black.

_Now I see _you, Nicolas's voice booms in his head. A foreign invader, a trespass into the heart of him, the very soul, and it leaves him strung out and missing and raw. _I have you._ Possessive and strong – he understands Erick's submission – Nicolas is powerful and driving. If he could feel his knees, they'd buckle, and he'd fight to keep them from collapsing.

A jolt, hand on his shoulder, and he falls backwards onto his ass.

Shots wake him up. _Bam, bam_, in rapid succession, roaring and in his ear but there's nothing in his hands. They're shaking; he usually is pretty steady handed. Glass is shattering, showering over his head, and he ducks, puts his hands up to shield himself.

Something growls, those long, yelping growls that grows louder – movement. As his foggy mind wakes up, Sam blinks and sees, looks up to see Dean standing at the window, gun held in a steady, two-handed grip, shooting out the window at something –

The lycans from his vision.

"Dean!" he shouts. Twice more before Dean takes a break and crouches down under the window, taking cover, but the lycans won't be carrying any guns.

"You okay?" Dean asks, a hand on Sam's shoulder.

"What the hell happened?"

"Fucker tried to get you," Dean growls. "Those the guys from your dream?"

Sam nods. Get him? "One of them. Nicolas."

"You sure you're – "

That growl's on them – a dark leopard leaps through the shattered window, white teeth gleaming in the low light. It bounces off the back of the couch to the floor, lands where the piles of bones were found days earlier. Dean's up, using the couch as cover, shooting at the leopard. Sirens are blaring, they're on their way. No time. Sam grabs the back of Dean's coat and yanks him back down.

"Cops!" he says. Dean looks at him darkly, shakes his head, and moves to take another shot but Sam's still got his hand fisted in his brother's jacket and pulls him back, towards the door – they have to get out of there or there won't be anyone out there to stop these monsters and more will die.

A yelp and growl and shit, there's another one coming through the window. The first blocks the other end of the couch and they're stuck. Sam stands, back hitting Dean's, guns out, ready to shoot. Take them out here and now except they aren't packing silver bullets – too expensive and rare for daily use – and will only wound the lycans, not kill them. Dean fires, Sam does, and the two howl and leap.

The sirens are close. Too close. Lights flash outside, red and white and blue, bouncing off the plain white walls of the apartment. They all know they can't get caught but are stuck in a stand off.

Dean's always been a martyr, ready to die for a cause, and as the lycans leap, Dean shouts and shoots – again and again, hoping riddling the beasts with holes will stop 'em. A thwack and bounce – Dean's across the room. The lycans leap out the window; cops shout in surprise as the animals bound down the street and into the shadows.

No time. Sam scrambles, then gets his footing and crosses the room. Cops are coming up the stairs, now, feet heavy on old wooden stairs, and Dean's just coming around from being thrown across the room.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three.**

There was a game they used to play, when left alone for days at a time with nothing to pass the time but cartoons and daytime TV. Timing Spaghettios was down to an art, daytime TV traded for an old puzzle found in the closet traded for jumping on the beds until they collapsed into a giggling heap on the biggest bed. And in that gap when Dean would go on hunts with their dad all the time, and Sam would stay in the car in case they needed help (and they didn't; he felt, later, that they never wanted to leave him alone), they'd try to one-up each other with their scars.

"Look," Sam would say, voice young and high, "chicken pox!"

"Only because you scratched 'em when I said not to," Dean would reply, trying to make his cracking voice sound like their dad's. "Got this one from a banshee."

A pout, jutting out of the bottom lip, using it as long as he could until it was no longer cute. "Well, this one's from picking up broken glass at school."

"What the hell were you doing, picking up that shit at school?" And the conversation would degrade, Dean would get angry, and the next day, the bully who smashed Sam's bottle of pop was sporting a nasty black eye.

It lightened tense moments, post-hunt, when the first aid kit, metal with a red cross on the top – a relic from before they were born – became a welcome fixture in cramped motel rooms. It kept the Winchesters from fussing over each other, all wanting to be the protector, none the protected.

Sam starts it, rubbing his hand. "Damn," he says, probing the slice on the edge of his hand, blood clotting along the surface. Dean glances over from the solitary armchair in the room, still in his jacket and boots, slouched down so far, his chin's resting on his chest.

"What?" he asks.

"Cut my hand on the window," he answers, holding up the side of his hand. Dean slides up in the chair, wincing.

"That's it?" he says. "Cut your hand on a piece of glass?"

"And probably bruised my back when you fell on top of me."

"From being thrown across the room," Dean grunts. He's working on getting out of his jacket, back still tender from the impact an hour earlier, when he catches that slight narrowing of Sam's eyes and realizes he fell into a trap – a very simple trap marked with a flashing neon sign he should have seen a mile away. _Let's talk about battle scars_, Dean mocks in his head, _let's try to one-up each other when we both know it's only Sam's way of getting me to admit anything_.

Mustering all he can, Dean stands fluidly and lets his jacket drop to the floor on his way to the bathroom. "Don't start with me, Sam," he growls. "Just a little sore."

"Don't start with you? Is that what you equate concern with, starting a fight?"

Twisting in the doorway, Dean leans casually; if Sam had remained sitting, they'd be on equal ground, but now, he towers over Dean. "Isn't that what happens? You get all mother hen on me when I say I'm fine?" He pauses, tired, wishing Sam could be more like Dad, show his concern when he was sleeping or unconscious. "I had a mom, thanks."

And slams the door behind him.

While he was never as good at math as Dean, Sam could grasp algebra and calculus better than most. As the shower sputters on in the bathroom, he re-works that equation he's had in his mind. Before, he thought Dean wanted to avoid confrontation when hurt or agitated, afraid whatever walls he'd constructed between himself and the rest of the world would be too thin and leave him too vulnerable – a nono when your dad's only pointed out your weakest aspects and ignores the shining moments.

Now, the answer's so obvious, Sam resists the urge to smack his forehead.

Dean doesn't see concern or care as the beginning of a fight or a weakness to be berated by their dad, he sees it as someone trying to replace his mother. And that can never happen, so long as her killer remains the subject of their fight. _She_ is the one who should be taking care of him, _she _is the one who should be fussing. Their shared history reminds Sam of Dad's way of dealing with things – almost frightened because it wasn't supposed to be his job.

Go down the line, and older siblings take care of the younger, whether it be from bullies on the playground or nasty colds while Dad was away. With the absence of Mom, well, he felt, maybe, there shouldn't be anyone out there for _him_.

Great. More blaming himself for all the evils of the world that came down upon their rag-tag family.

Short of storming into the bathroom and confronting his brother in the shower – not the best idea – there's not much he can do with his new information. The first aid kit still sits on the dresser with its rusted hinges from too many uses out in the rain, and Sam decides to sit on the floor, pull the box down, and clean out the deep slice on the edge of his right hand.

He hisses when he dabs the cut with hydrogen peroxide, waiting for the stinging to die down – lets the chemical kill bacteria and hums to himself one of those happy songs Jess used to dance to when cleaning their apartment. Finished bubbling, Sam tosses the cotton puff into the trashcan – overhand, like throwing a careless basket – and wonders if he can do stitches with his left hand as well as he can with his right.

The nightly news is on when Dean emerges from the bathroom, damp hair revealing how long it's gotten by laying in his eyes. Sam gives a quick smirk from his bed, leaning against the headboard and surrounded by the whole of their research.

"And you say my hair's long," he remarks. Dean scoffs with a nod while crossing the room, and bends over to rummage through his bag for clean clothes.

Sam tunes out the news at the sight of the large, angry bruise on Dean's back, dark blue and purple running down his spine, radiating in his lower back towards his sides. It disappears under the towel wrapped around his waist.

When Dean straightens, Sam's back to watching the news.

"Get a haircut," Dean remarks, humor strained. "Or learn to style it someway that doesn't make you look like a mutt." And disappears back behind the bathroom door.

Whatever. Two can play this game. Sam turns up the news when the opening gambit is over and the anchors launch into the night's 'A' stories – or, as they say to the public, "top stories." It's the best way to see if they'll be in the papers the next morning, identified or not, and will have to change their tactics.

The story's third down and in the confusion, no one looked for the shooters after so many were mauled and three killed by the attack in the stairwell. With cops dead, they'd be looking for who owned the animals, not the shooters.

A fluff story's on when Dean comes out again. "We make the news?"

"Nope."

Instead of flopping, Dean sits gingerly on his bed and lies on his stomach, feet kicking against the headboard, hands pillowing his head. "Then change the channel."

The remote thumps onto the bed next to Dean's side. It takes two minutes of flipping through the available channels before he grows tired of both Sam's detachment and the available shows. He thumbs off the TV.

"Don't stay up too late," he comments. Sam doesn't respond, so he twists around, slides his hand under the pillow to grasp the knife kept there, and tries to sleep.

--

Breakfast is in a bagel shop in Lincoln Park. It's a Jewish place in the middle of a posh, rehabbed area of the north side, the sort of place a guy with money and means would live – close enough to Angela Ashbury's apartment and work, far enough to keep her two lives separate. Working on little more than hearsay, the morning's plan is to hopefully stumble upon someone who'd seen Angela with her secret boyfriend. It's a big city and they're running blind, but it's better than following breadcrumbs to the wolf's den.

Kids wander in and out – the city's crawling with them, ants coming out when the sun's up, sleeping through the afternoon to become nocturnal. Numerous colleges, and they don't even know if Angela had been in school or came to the city looking for lighter prospects. Hundreds of bars, restaurants, shops – a needle in a stack of needles, all sharp, pointy, and ready to stab.

Bagels are cheap. The tables are high and against the glass windows lining two sides of the shop, and even Sam's feet dangle above the floor, kicking against the legs once and while as he ate, gazing out the window. At eight in the morning, the streets are full of people in suits and skirts rushing in and out of the CTA station down the street, into tall buildings or Starbucks.

"They can't be everywhere, can they?" Dean muses, mostly to himself around a mouthful of bagel and cream cheese.

Sam shrugs. "If there's enough, they could be staking out each crime scene."

"Shit."

A bell rings above the door when someone enters. There's a hum of movement, rush, a definitive lack of time that taps their shoulders, tells them to _get moving_. Just because they showed up doesn't mean whatever these lycans are up to will stop – they have a plan, a devious motive, and experience has taught Sam that devotion to such ends amounts to religious faith on the monster's part. They'll finish no matter what it takes.

Watching the people walk by, cars inch up to the nearby intersection, his mind wanders. His only connection to these creatures is his vision, two days ago, flashes surfacing as he relaxes. The park, and he winces – then frowns. If they can't investigate recent crimes, what about past ones?

"Hey, do you think the police connected the first death to the current ones?" he asks.

"Which first – oh." An uncomfortable shift. "Probably not. Think you can find it?"

"Fifty parks or so? Piece of cake," Sam says, sarcastic. Dean throws a napkin at him.

"Shut up."

--

There are 264 public parks with walking/jogging trails in the jurisdiction of the Chicago Park District, and that doesn't even take into account the forest preserves in the bumping suburbs belonging to the county. A detail from the vision – of the corpse, Nicolas' kill, propped up under a limestone table, narrowed the results, and twenty minutes later, they were headed south to Washington Park.

The wide, forty acre park, constructed at the turn of the century, had been slated as the location for Chicago's ambitious proposal to host the 2016 Olympic Games and it can be seen why. Named for George Washington, the park has several buildings, trails, open areas, and a museum on the grounds. With so much ground to cover, Dean muses, in his head, not aloud, that it would take them all day to find the tables, more specifically, that seen in the vision.

Finding a parking space is easy; the sudden drop in temperature has reminded the city's occupants that it's winter, and Mother Nature has yanked away warmth greedily taken advantage of. They're back to hibernating, staying inside, bundling up in coats and scarves and cloves and hats so only the eyes are seen, and sometimes not even then.

Cold, frozen grass crunches underfoot, low temperatures dampening sound, erasing it. The city, so often loud and bustling even in the background, is eerily silent, their movements blasting in stereo around them. _Let's hope no one's waiting here for us_, Dean thinks, the voice of his father yelling in the back of his mind with each loud, obvious step. Barren trees grant a clear view, and if they're making this much noise, anything coming after them would make the same. Thank God for small favors. If there really _is_ a God up there.

"We really need some gloves," Sam sighs. He flexes his hands in and out of fists and breathes into them.

"I think there's a pair in the trunk," says Dean. "Old, though, probably Dad's."

"Is everything hand me downs?" There's a scoff, bitterness built up from years of getting discards, nothing new enough to keep the kids from making comments through high school, when he grew tall enough to get his own stuff.

"Quality stuff lasts longer," Dean replies. "Costs less, too."

"Yeah, sure. Would have liked them to be _my_ quality stuff."

"Didn't know you cared so much about fashion, Samantha." He shakes his head. "Are you going to pick on everything, or just the stuff you know pisses me off? Yeah, you had hand me downs. Deal. I had 'em, too, but you don't see me moping around, blaming my dad for my shitty hand in life. It's like you feel entitled to, I don't know, be better than us."

"Not better, just normal."

Dean scoffs. "Normal? What the hell about all this is normal? We don't have _time_ to go find you gloves. Your hands are cold? Shove 'em in your pockets or grab the pair out of the trunk." A pause; Sam can recognize Dean repressing emotions by the sound of his forced even breathing. "You see any of these tables from your vision thing?"

"Not yet," bites out Sam. The trail's no less loud under booted feet, but it's a good path to follow. Shared, sure, handed down generation to generation, okay, but worn and true and passed out of wisdom and love and protection.

There's not much to see. The full weight of what they're hunting – and being hunted by – hits hard; the table wears scars of age it didn't in Sam's troubling dream, erosion and weather and teenagers with pocket knives for twenty years have dug into the soft limestone, and it less resembles a table and more an old, neglected statue. The general shape isn't even round; Sam finds it by the trees surrounding the small clearing it stands in.

Sam crouches next to the table while Dean starts on the nearest trees. Each knows what he's looking for – marks, remains, _clues_ – and what could be looking for them. But the what isn't so important as the _why_, the crux of every investigation. _Why_ do these things exist in a world of humans and mammals and the basic laws of physics? Motivation for them is so basically _human_, so simple inside the theories of psychology, yet so warped by alien DNA and constructs, Sam finds that he's adapted what he learned in high school and college psychology classes to fit a sicker mind.

He rests a hand on the curve of the table's edge, frowning at graffiti sprayed and written on the underside where maintenance workers won't look or clean. Gang signs, hearts with carved initials, names in multiple colors. Nothing says a woman died here; there are no last words drawn with blood by dying fingers. No dead grass or bones left by incompetent workers or overworked cops. Just cold, eroded limestone, a once grand addition to an idealized park.

Standing, Sam crosses to the small grouping of trees that have captured Dean's attention; Dean reaches out and brushes his fingertips along four gouges carved into the wood, edges of the bark creeping in, trying to heal unsightly blemishes. Like a camera lens opening to allow in more light, Sam realizes the surrounding trees wear the same marks in varying degrees and heights, all angry marks. He glances from the trees to the table and back again, a bit befuddled.

"Did you see anything around here?" Dean asks, stepping back, next to Sam. "Or by the table?"

"Nothing. How old do you think these marks are?"

"Couple of months," he answers. "Maybe before winter; if they had more time, the tree would have more growth over 'em and the marks would be harder to see."

"The first death was late November," Sam recalls. "Nicolas comes to – "

"Dude, names?" Dean buts in, turning away from the trees. His voice lacks the usual luster of sarcasm; it's a low whisper. _Monsters don't have names, and we don't honor them with any_. Giving names is dangerous – many old cultures continue to believe that to name a thing gives it power, and they're already up against so much, there's no need to take unnecessary chances.

"Sorry," Sam mutters, small, in apology. "They come to town, kill the woman here," – he gestures around them – "and then stay put? None of the lycan packs we've found have ever stayed put for more than a few weeks, and those were dying."

"Virtuously unlimited food supply, good bars, overburdened cops? What I'm wondering is why more haven't popped up in cities."

Sam glares pointedly.

"Right." He reaches out and raps a knuckle on the face of a nearby tree all the while rolling his eyes at Sam. They catch on something high up in the tree, narrowing like a focus ring as his fist falls flat to his side. Curious, Sam turns to match the direction of Dean's gaze, pivots on one foot to face east, but his eyes never make the climb through the branches. Instead, they stick to the ground below, where two men stand, hands in their pockets, the telltale bulge of a weapon swelling their stomachs.

"Hey," Dean says, voice coming from over Sam's left shoulder. He's not surprised; Dean can move silently if he wants to, though most of the time, this skill is saved for sneaking out on women he's picked up or sneaking in at four AM.

The men blink, and that's when Sam notices their eyes are a strange mixture of copper and brown, deep, inhumanly soulful eyes. He's seen enough, _knows _enough – they're lycans, no hunt too old for memories as immortal as they claim to be.

"We're not here to fight you," one says in an even tenor. "Nicolas invites you both to join him for a drink."

"I don't make a habit of drinking with prey," snarks Dean. "So thanks, but no thanks."

The second puts a hand on his gun. "It isn't the type of invitation you can decline."

"A meeting of mutual peace," the first remarks. He's softer than the other, the peacemaker, not the muscle. "No weapons, no guards. A simple drink."

A stalemate. Dean shrugs and pats Sam on the shoulder – twice, _stay alert_. "Then again, I've never turned down a free drink."

--

And the bar isn't even in a seedy part of town.

It is, however, under a towering yellow EL track, across the street from a station entrance on the north side. Every seven to ten minutes, glass chandeliers hanging from the ceiling rattle with the force of a passing train, and new patrons are plucked out from the seasoned by their annoyed reaction to the building's shudder.

Most don't seem bothered, even if some lengths of the Red Line's track are over seventy years old, rusted, and long past due for replacement.

The chauffeurs push their broad shoulders through the swarm of people getting an early start on the weekend, heading for the back of the bar. Here, booths line the walls up to a smaller, walled-off private room, the doorway a curtain held open by another, smaller man. When they reach the door, the two lycans break off, dissolve into the growing crowd, leaving Dean and Sam and what little they can see of the room behind the curtain.

"What do you take?" Throaty, smooth, seductive, Nicolas walks around from behind and motions for the brothers to follow through to the room; the man at the curtain lets it fall with a swish of dark velvet. They are alone.

The knowledge from Sam's vision has them sitting beside each other across the room from Nicolas, uncomfortable, trying to figure out his game. How easy would it be for him to transform and kill them?

"Uh," Dean clears his throat. "Just a beer."

"Yeah," Sam voices. With a flick of his wrist, the order's out.

"So," Nicolas says, leaning forward, "you're probably wondering why I invited you here."

"Crossed our minds, yeah," Dean replies, mirroring Nicolas' movement. "Maybe you should start with why the fuck you attacked us yesterday."

There's no need for pretense here, all the players know who's in the game and what side they're on – opposite camps not out of deep, original conviction, but handed down ideals both are tired of, but hold up nonetheless. Dean and Nicolas remain locked on each other for a few seconds, an odd, heightened staring contest, then Nicolas leans back and takes a sip of his drink.

"It's not you, is it," he remarks jovially, amused. He swirls the liquor in his glass. "The one who can see like my Erick." Dean glances to Sam. "Oh, it's quite obvious. You protect him as I protect Erick, which isn't to say he can't look out for himself, not at all. Just that there are some things you can't fight, and must compensate somehow."

"That doesn't answer my question."

"But it answers mine. Can we cut the bullshit, please? You know exactly why I asked you here. You two are hunters, and I'm not a moron."

"Neither are we," Dean says.

"And yet, here you sit."

Nicolas licks his teeth, tongue working over them hungrily, eyeing his next meal in a shop window. If he's expecting his prey to flinch, to throw the table over, frantically fleeing, he's disappointed. The brothers sit still, even with each other, backs straight like their father taught them, almost _bored_ with Nicolas's little show.

The building tension is sliced when the curtain slides open and the small man returns with two beers slick with condensation on a tray. He sets each bottle on the low lacquered table and leaves without a word, but the spell's broken – Nicolas sets his drink down on the table with the heavy thud of thick glass, snarling a bit when his guests grab their drinks and swig down a bit.

His threats aren't having the effect he desires, and he's met his share of hunters over the years. Anger flares in him, tinting his eyes a creamy gold, and he snaps like a furious dog, human teeth snapping with canine ferocity. "Are you stupid? Or conceited?" he shouts. Sweeps his arm across the table in a wide arc, smashing the glass into the wall with a burst of dark liquid that spatters like blood before leaking down in wide stripes to the top of the booth.

It takes great control to keep from smashing the beer bottle in his hand on the table and thrusting out the jagged end as a weapon; even without guns or knives on either side, Dean and Sam are at a horrible disadvantage, realizing too late the guise of a human can be tricky when dealing on another level. They've hunted beings that resembled humans, or once were human, but there had been a clear distinction, whether it be transparency or horrible mutilations. Nicolas had neither, but his temper gave him away.

He hovers close, breath hot between the brothers, eyes darting like rolling marbles between their profiles. "I can smell it," he hushes, voice sharp but soft. A whispered dagger. "Fear. You're outmatched and you know it, so why don't you get the fuck out of town and leave us be."

Their snarls are human, mere imitations of Nicolas's mastery, but Dean brings his own anger to the game. "When you stop murdering people, you son of a bitch."

Nicolas shrugs. Backs off, sitting knee to knee on the low block table. The liquor is pooled on the back of the plush booth, sliding down slick vinyl, plopping to the seat in uneven seconds. One, two, three.

"I like you," he says. Looks to Sam. "Even you, even though you let him do all the talking. Too bad we'll have to kill you."

Dean smiles. "Can I finish my beer first?"


	4. Chapter 4

Totally getting to the Hurt!Dean soon, kids. And Hurt!Sam, though I'm less aquainted with him; we're quickly making friends. ;)

* * *

**  
Chapter Four.**

"Are you _insane_?" Sam demands. He walks a bit faster than Dean once they're outside the bar, pink neon looped above the door washing out his face, wanting to both get away and stay to confront his brother's distinct lack of sanity. What the hell was he thinking, baiting Nicolas like that – that was Dad's job, not theirs. Keeping serious and stoic so Dad had intimidating backup when he tossed back a few with devils and demons had always been their job, part of the _plan_.

Which is exactly what they lack.

There isn't much traffic coming down the street. Dean gives a quick left, right before jogging across to the EL station on the other side. "Those assholes, making me leave my car. If anything happens to her, I'm going to," – and shouts the last part – "enjoy killing those SOBs!"

Dean yanks open the door to the station and barrels through, worried about his _car_ – a sure sign of insanity, right? Inside, he's stopped from hopping the gate by a large woman in the service booth who looks up slowly from her magazine and shakes her head, curls bouncing.

"I can't believe you. Did you even have a plan?" Sam asks, used to using automated card machines from his life before this as a college student. He deposits the change and pulls out a plastic transit card. "He could have killed us right there," he continues his short rant, inserts the card into the reader, and misses Dean's curious expression when it pops back out and Sam pushes through the gate. "No weapons? Geeze, Dean – " Finally noticing he still has the card in his hand, he reaches back, slides it in, and motions Dean through. "Dude."

Dean stops and rubs the back of his neck. "What, should we flinch? Those things are _killing_ people, normal, everyday people and probably get off on their screaming. Dad had it right when he said you have to sink to their level sometimes."

"Sink to their level?"

"You know what I mean."

Sam shakes his head – there's no getting through when any lesson of Dad's is referenced; his word remains the end all be all. He climbs the first staircase two steps a time with long, lanky legs, and takes in the map of intersecting colored lines, tracing from the 'You Are Here' mark, weathered and half-peeled from the plastic sign, hoping the station nearest the park shares its name.

It doesn't.

A few stragglers pass by, older folks out late, young kids, laughing and leaning on each other to stay upright, stumbling left to right, weaving up the stairs. Too far gone to ask for directions; Sam bounds back down to the station below and raps his knuckles on the Plexiglas window. She glances up, settles her face, and slides open the tiny window.

"What?" she asks.

"How do I get to Washington Park?" asks Sam. She shakes her head, mutters under her breath.

"Take the brown line to the loop, transfer to the green, then you get off at Garfield. But there ain't no busses running this late; it's a hike from the station."

He smiles, cocks his head slightly to the side. "Thanks."

"Best be careful," she calls as he starts up the stairs.

He almost turns his head, almost replies that he's trying to, but holds his tongue. He's handled worse before, can handle himself because of Dad's rigorous training and drills and orders, and while before it was hard to defend himself against other people, that line's definitely been blurred by recent events.

The air is chilly up on the platform, the thin roof doing nothing to shelter it from the icy wind sweeping through the channels created by alleys and streets. Dean trudges down the old wooden platform to a steel warming alcove, heat lamps hanging from the roof's support beam giving a little relief from the cold.

He leans up against the rounded edge, metal like ice fusing to his spine. It reminds him he's alive, still kicking and hunting and moving through the motions. Fire and ice, spine to sides, he leans his head back and closes his eyes, listening to Sam's feet patting the wood on his way over. Sam radiates his own type of heat, standing on Dean's left, outside the heat of the lamp lights.

Neither speak. The lights click off, and for a moment, there's silence and a frothy chill to fill such metaphorical space between close brothers. Sam slides his feet, shifting, then the lights click back on and the fake sunlight's back.

"Got a plan?" Sam asks softly.

"Nope." Eyes still closed, he can hear the intake of breath needed for whatever objections Sam may have, and twists his head to regard his younger brother with lazy eyes. "Save the lecture. We know who's behind all this, but we don't know why. We go in and take 'em out now and sure, we'll stop them, but I don't think they're the ones pulling the strings."

"No?"

Dean pushes forward, wincing as the cold bar is removed from still tender bruises. "He would have killed us if he could, Sam. A lycan like him, with two hunters inside some private room? Why _wouldn't_ he kill us? Someone else has to be in charge, wants us here and alive."

"But not investigating," remarks Sam. Dean nods, shoves his hands in the pockets of his jeans, and leans forward to look up and down the track.

"Where's the damn train?" he mutters, then turns to Sam. "Maybe they know that when someone tells us no, we charge ahead just for the challenge."

"To take out the lycans when whatever's going on is done?" Sam says, question rhetorical. "It's some messed up game of chess."

"Usually is," sighs Dean cryptically. "All we have to do is figure out what the hell's going on without crossing paths with Nicolas and his fun furry friends."

"How many had those notches in the bones?" Sam asks.

A shrug. "Four, maybe five."

A horn sounds in the distance. White headlights shine down the track as the train roars into the station. It screeches to a stop, windows showing only a few passengers per car. The small crowd around the warming lights disperses as the bells chime and the doors slide open.

Inside, the brothers sit in seats near the door, facing the center aisle – good for coverage, to watch their backs. With an announcement by a flat automated voice, the doors slide closed and the train chugs up to speed with a rattling that clicks teeth and shakes the heart as it makes it way down the track.

Sam rubs his forehead, pinches the bridge of his nose. "It's going to be a lot harder to get in to see the bones." Turns his bowed head to Dean. "Even with your 'master forgery' skills."

"They've got to have an autopsy report on file with the police."

"Sure, man. You're going to stroll right in and grab the files off the desk," remarks Sam with a scoff. "Right. They won't arrest you. I'm sick of having to save your ass from the cops."

"Internet file, bitch," Dean growls.

"A big city like this is going to have a closed intranet. I can't hack into it like I normally do."

"You just have to get in the door. Access the files from inside."

"And how am I going to do that?"

Dean smirks. "Well, you _are_ good at getting me out of jail."

Sam groans, leans his head back to the window and lifts it just as fast, not up for having his brains rattled into soup. Bent over, elbows on knees and head in hands, he laughs. A short, half-laugh that grows as the train stops at the next station. Sam's laughing at the absurdity of it all, laughter growing. Dean places a hand on his back, feels the shudder of expanding lungs through his jacket, and smiles. He's thinking of when the sun will rise and the ruckus he'll make in the police station to let Sam through because if there's one thing he excels at, it's causing trouble.

--

The distance from the station to the car seems shorter when Dean's driving at 60 miles per hour, foot heavy on the gas and gaining speed. A crescent moon hangs high, a sliver of light bright in the dark hours after midnight.

Neither is tired, sleeping like the city. They are wired, adrenaline fueling a trail with clues soon to vanish, such is the consequence of time. The pardon offered by whom, or whatever, Nicolas reports to can't last long – a warning, giving them a window to escape unscathed before they do what must be done. Survival of the fittest through strategic murders.

A headache pounds through Dean's head, striking him sharply in the back of his skull where it connected with a wall the previous night, a constant reminder of his fragile mortality. Speed distracts him, music, too, pulsing through the Impala's steel frame, uninterrupted by chatty morning and afternoon DJs. The words are lethargic, traffic report short – no one is out on the roads but them, and Dean takes advantage of being the only inhabitant of an empty city.

"Find it?" he asks, tapping impatient fingers on the worn leather of the steering wheel. Sam waves a hand – _be quiet_ – he's on the phone, listening to the automated menu for the Chicago Police Department, waiting for the option for location. A crime spree this large – public, shocking – would be centered in headquarters and not a local precinct.

"State and Roosevelt," Sam repeats, then hangs up, tossing his Blackberry on the dash. The sound of it skidding across cracked vinyl sparks a memory, the phone sliding down the slick bar of his and Jess's favorite hang out when it was still brand new. Have his friends wondered where he is or how he's doing, or have they, after a year, finally given up, letting him fade like the scent of smoke from the charred remains of his apartment?

"Where the hell is that?" barks Dean. "Look at a map or something." Out of the corner of his eye, he watches Sam fiddle with his phone, press buttons quickly and easily. The stoplight ahead clicks yellow, red, and the Impala's engine idles with a rumble, sound reverberating off brick walls.

"Head towards the lake."

Even in the dark, when all is dormant and sky melts into ground, Dean keeps his sense of direction and heads confidently east. Chicago is laid out in a grid; it helps most acclimate and navigate the city, except for those from Milwaukee, where the numbered system, like many things in life, is reversed.

--

He's used to shadowing his older brother.

A large part of his training, John Winchester had his youngest follow his brother, walk in his footsteps, make the same quiet strides. Years of stepping in Dean's shadow have given him rare insight as to the moves and motivations of his brother that have easily translated to daily life; the length of a stride, the slight turn of a foot, a long breath – all tells he can read and act upon within seconds.

Moving unseen is easy here, where tall buildings and cars left illegally overnight cast long, sharp shadows across the amber of lit sidewalks.

Following a block behind, Sam watches as one moves forward to engage Dean, a beggar living in the shadow of the CPD's headquarters – spitting in the face of the law with each panhandled coin. He shakes his cup and spouts something Sam can't hear from such a distance, probably a sad story with just the right embellishment to get deeper into wallets.

When Dean doesn't stop, the man leaves his perch and follows, shouts loud enough to be heard as swears and derogatory remarks. When an insult is thrown on their mother, Sam's breath catches in his chest, a painful balloon needing release – this wasn't part of the plan. Dean pivots around, eyes narrow, and yells back at the man.

His lungs aren't moving, but Sam's feet are, and he closes the distance between himself and his brother, slowing as a returning patrol car does the same, rubber tires rolling slowly on the upswept street, curious.

Words are exchanged. A giant spotlight swings over Dean just as he launches himself at the homeless man, tackling him to the ground in a rare show of raw emotion. Damn the plan – Sam rushes over and hooks his arms around Dean, pulling back and hoping Dean realizes it's him before trying to defend himself with a mean right hook.

The whoop of a starting siren – Dean stops, grins up at Sam, and does as the officers say when they are close enough to see the whites of his eyes.

--

True to his colors, Dean yells loud and struggles against the officer leading him through the doors and down the steel staircase to the booking agent, going so far as to grab the top of the railing and let the officer try and pull him down. He releases after a few seconds – he wants to get Sam in, not himself arrested – and smiles a floppy, goofy smile with, he hopes, drunk-looking eyes.

"Think you're a funny guy, huh? You're a lucky SOB; that homeless guy's not pressing charges," the officer remarks on their way down the stairs. "Drunk and wandering the streets – you lookin' for trouble, or just that fucking wasted?" Dean stumbles off the bottom stair and teeters off right into a wooden bench set across the lobby from the duty desk. He laughs it off, slides to the floor, and lets his chin fall to his chest.

"Throw this one in the drunk tank," he sneers. "Anyone make a run to Dunkin Donuts?"

"Tim's leaving in a few," the deputy at the desk answers.

"Oh, that's an order I want to get in on." The officer, mind on donuts and coffee, uncuffs Dean and wanders off, disappearing behind the wall separating the desk and lobby from the unknown world of police.

Dean lounges against the counter. "Hey, does that mean I can leave?"

A piercing look from the deputy says _no_.

--

Sam spends the night in their hotel room alone.

There's no snoring, no shifting or stumbling in the middle of the night. He's free to leave the television off, the lamp on, and read, propped up with both his and the other bed's pillows, as long as he'd like. He can take a shower and not worry about what Dean's possibly done to his clothes, and for dinner, he has something that isn't saturated in grease or made at a local and possibly shady diner.

After reading the same page three times, Sam groans and tosses a paperback – worn from weeks of carrying it around in hope he could find time to read it – onto the end of the bed. Running weary hands over his face, he realizes his dreamed solitude is full of fallacies. It's been years since he'd lived alone – even his dorm room freshman year came with a roommate – and the ambient, natural sounds of someone else in the room have become comforting.

In short, he misses his sometimes annoying roommate.

A night of waking up to silence has him frazzled, and despite his best efforts, his hair still sticks out oddly under handfuls of the goop Dean calls hair gel. His suit – the only one he owns, bought secondhand in Nazareth – is rumpled. He approaches his task with weary confidence, hoping the sight of his brother after a night in the drunk tank will even the playing field.

Sam approaches the desk with a smile, hoping bags under his eyes make him look overworked, not under-qualified. A sneaky resentful thought snakes through in time with his steps – _you'd be two years from a bar card if only_...

He knows how _that_ thought ends.

Drooping an arm on the counter, Sam puts on a charming smile. "I believe my brother was brought in last night; about this tall," – holds a hand to his shoulder, wishing he could share the tickling laughter with someone – "dark blond hair, probably swore a lot?"

The officer nods, a young woman with closely cropped blonde hair and pretty painted lips. "Hits on anything with tits? Yeah, he's here. Been sleeping off a bender."

"Sounds like him. Think I can pick him up?"

"Let me get the duty officer; I'm just here for his fifteen."

Police procedure is the same if there's a city of 5 million or a town of 500; most shifts overlap for at least a half hour, creating chaos as twice as many people clutter the narrow, usually adequate hallways and spans between desks. Breaks are scheduled, fresh blood relieves the old, and Sam's got about ten minutes before the woman covering the desk comes back looking for him – or anyone notices there's an extra body that isn't supposed to be there.

He swiped a VISITOR badge from Dean's collection in the glove box; he plucks it from his pocket and clips it on a wrinkled lapel before passing through the door marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.

Behind the door, the station is buzzing with contagious energy. Officers, both in and out of uniform, rush down crowded hallways and between desks in an overstuffed bullpen area. Sam slips through easily, his suit helping him to blend in with other lawyers and detectives roaming the halls, and looks for an open computer or file room he can use without attracting the wrong kind of attention.

The rush of moving officers and assistants won't last long, not nearly long enough to do deep research or search through governmental databases for a commonality. Then again, when has anything he's hunted stuck to a pattern defined by birthplace or the same hairstylist?

Navigating is easy. He clicks through screens left up by the computer's owner until he finds the shared database login, left open on another case more human but no less horrible. Without a case number, Sam has to search based on the identifying marks he's looking to connect; he grabs for some scrap paper on the desk and scribbles down the names and anything left in the notes section of the autopsy reports. He pockets the notes and the pen -- there's nothing he can do to wipe the keyboard, but that doesn't mean he can't do _anything_ -- before pushing out of the chair and into the hallway --

"Hey, kid, what are you doing back here?"

Sam takes a breath and turns to the questioner. "Uh, I'm here to pick up my brother, but no one was at the desk, do you think you could help me out?" he asks, switching mid-sentence. The questioner, a uniform beat cop probably on his way to call, eyes Sam, then chuckles and shakes his head.

"He in trouble?" he says. "My brother, damn troublemaker -- to be honest, he's a bit of a fuck up, but I, man, how many times have I gone in to get him after a bender?" He whistles and starts leading Sam, smiling at some old memory made amusing by time.

Sam plays along. "Yeah, sounds like my brother. Bet he's sleeping it off in the drunk tank while I'm out here -- "

"Picking his drunk ass up," interrupts the cop. They round the corner, and the warmth of cream walls and beige industrial carpeting gives way to the cold of concrete -- walls and floor as grey as the painted steel bars. The smell and sounds of men are concentrated, close quarters sharing more than benches after a night behind bars. Their steps echo through the dimly lit hallway; a few men hold the bars or shout insults at the beat cop -- he takes them with a grain of salt and keeps walking to the booking cop.

"Hey, open the tank, will ya? Someone's got a ride waiting."

The booking cop pauses halfway through printing a bleary-eyed rail of a man, his finger sinking into the thick black sponge. Sam looks to the cells, to the faint black stains on prisoners' fingers, and hopes -- prays, though he won't tell Dean -- that city cops are just as lazy as their contemporaries and are just getting to the drunks just waking.

She hands the man off to Sam's cop and unlocks the tank. He spots his brother right away, sitting in one of the corners, head tilted back to the wall, arms crossed. Like most of the men gathered in the twelve by twelve, he's asleep, or at least pretending to be, eyelashes dark against skin washed out by overhead lights.

When the gate slides open, Dean tilts his head, smiles lopsided, and stands. "Hey there, sunshine," he drawls, walking towards Sam and freedom at the same time, "took you long enough." The officer waves him through, and the cell clanks closed with a resounding _twang_ behind them. "Thanks, sugar," he grins at the booking cop, now back fingerprinting her prisoner.

To Sam's infinite dismay, she doesn't frown, she winks.

As they walk out, the officer laughs.

--

Dean clips Sam in the back of the head as they hop-step down the three steps to street level. Above, the sun's stronger as the clock inches towards high noon, and the breeze off the lake is softer during the lunch hour. The brothers blend in, traveling with human traffic down the street to the parallel spot the Impala's parked in.

"Hey!" says Sam, frowning.

"Thanks for taking your sweet-ass time, Sammy boy," Dean grunts, hands in his pockets. His hair is a bit flatter then it was the night before, but that's the only difference in appearance; rumpled, but full of energy, and that little creep slept _just fine_ while Sam tossed and turned.

The car groans as they fall into comfortable places, Dean back in the driver's seat where he belongs. He doesn't start the car, though, but lets his head thunk back onto the top of the bench seat and sighs.

Maybe he wasn't as rested as Sam thought.

"Man," Dean yawns. He scratches the side of his face idly while gazing out the windshield at people walking down the sidewalk. For a moment, Sam catches a glimpse of the weariness that's inhabited his brother ever since – just ever since. Lines on his face seem deeper, etched sharply upon a normally youthful face, his mouth now a scowl Sam doesn't remember seeing until he was pulled back from fire a second time.

Silence hangs heavy, and for a few moments. Sam feels like he should say something, that a moment like this is rare, and there are so many answers he craves.

Time to man-up and just _ask_. "Dean –"

"So, what did you find out?" interrupts Dean, blinking open his eyes and the momentary slip of a

mask. "Tell me I didn't spend the night in there for nothing."

"No," Sam quickly recovers. It's always like this – wanting to ask, talk, but always losing to hesitation. Does that mean he really doesn't want to know?

"No, you found something, or no, I wasn't in there for nothing?" Dean asks, head now lifted and turned towards Sam. "C'mon, man!"

"There are two more with the same marks in their ribs," Sam says, pulling out his notebook. As he speaks, Dean starts the car and watches for a clear space in traffic to pull out. "A Thomas Alton and Bethany Salron."

"Kinda breaks any theory around gender." The light behind them changes and Dean pulls out into traffic, making a right onto Roosevelt back to the hotel. "The cops got a theory?"

"They're grasping at straws," Sam reports. "None of the victims lived near each other, went to the same school, knew each other. They don't even look alike. I don't know, Dean – maybe there isn't a connection."

He takes a right on Dearborn. The tires squeal as he takes it too fast. "We already know the first was desperate for a boyfriend and the second, for a dude who could play bass."

"Wait. What makes you think Angela was desperate for a boyfriend?"

"Think about it. She didn't want anyone at work to know him – she had to be reaching for the bottom of the barrel to date someone she couldn't even introduce to those weirdoes she worked with."

Sam thought about Jess, and her never-ending requests to meet his family. "Maybe _he_ didn't want to meet them."

He gets a pained look. "Then why would he go there to surprise her? Trust me; sometimes the girl wants to keep you her dirty little secret."

It's hard to get a read with Dean so focused on the road – maybe that's why he was.

"Learn that one from personal experience?" Sam half-jokes, hoping the lighter tone might slip through carefully constructed barriers.

It does; Dean snorts and lets out a chuckle. "Yeah, maybe." Then, "They were all desperate for some reason – no surprise there. But Angela didn't have a notch."

"Those guys said Jimmy put up fliers to find a bass player," Sam thinks aloud. "Maybe the others were just as desperate." He shakes his head. "Can you imagine, putting yourself out there for anything to find? People really need to re-learn stranger danger. Would make it harder for shit to find 'em."

"Would also make it harder for us to help them," points out Sam.

Dean clicks on the radio.

--

A quick query on the internet reveals the Gold Coast address of Bethany Salron, Chicago's high-class district of luxurious condos butting up against the lake just a stone's throw from the posh Magnificent Mile of Michigan Ave. Here, the Impala sticks out, dried mud along the bottom of the frame, flicked up from balding tires, clashing with gleaming SUVs and elegant sports cars. Dean snarls at them as he roams for an empty spot to park, half wishing he had one but loving his car all the same. His has character, a memory of its own that those new cars, traded in after a few years when the owners grow bored of them, will never have.

Even in a residential area, there are meters along the major streets, and permit parking signs on the side routes. More willing to spare a few quarters than his car's relative freedom, Dean swings into a spot as soon as it opens up, parallel parking with marked ease, fingers tapping on the leather back of the bench seat before the car settles. He's got his seatbelt off and one foot out the door when Sam notices the meter and traffic whizzing by a bit too fast for comfort.

"Uh, Dean?" he asks while he unbuckles his own lap belt and steps onto the sidewalk. "You sure you want to park on the street? Someone could come by and, God-forbid, take off the side mirror or something."

"Ha ha," Dean replies. "Don't patronize me, Sam," he says over the roof. "It's hard enough without your comments."

At a break in traffic, Dean jogs off without warning, Sam's long legs the only thing allowing him to catch up, albeit awkwardly, inside the drive curving outward in front of the apartment building. An employee gives them an odd look, one that could mean trouble, but becomes distracted by an overly demanding woman and turns away. Sam thumps Dean on the back.

"You're an ass," he grins.

"And you're a whiny bitch," Dean shoots back. "This the place?"

Sam looks up at the address above the door in large, gold letters, and wonders, briefly, if they're gold plated like those seen in the rest of America. He nods, "Yeah. Apartment 317."

The lobby is a room longer than it is wide, with a security desk made of marble on the left. Beneath their feet is an elegant floral carpeting, and the room is more golds and mirrors than usually seen just inside the doors of an apartment building. When they enter, eyes wide with wonder that marks the regular from intruder, the security guard looks up from a monitor or hidden magazine, and clears his throat.

"Can I help you?" he asks after a pregnant pause.

Heads back in the game, the brothers turn to the guard, their smiles reflecting back at them from the mirrored wall behind the guard station. Dean steps up this time, where there are no un-relatable college students around, and leans casually on the counter.

"Hey. We're with the police clean up crew. Someone from the Salron place called and said we missed something," drawls Dean in that laid back Southern meter Sam never really developed. It relaxes people, makes them lean in a little closer and give Dean the benefit of the doubt.

"I'll have to call up there," says the guard, reaching for the phone.

"C'mon, man," Dean tries. "They're out. I really don't want to get fired today; leaving something's more than enough to get my ass sacked."

There's a moment of uncertainty, then the guard hangs up the phone. "Make it quick."

"Like I'd take my time. Thanks, man."

Dean leaves, Sam beside him, before anyone can think twice. Farther down the lobby is the elevator lobby, three elevators facing three more in gleaming gold.

"Geeze," whistles Dean. "This woman was _loaded_. If this is the lobby, I wonder what her place looks like."

"Could be her husband," Sam comments, pressing the up button. Both have their eyes to the ceiling, heads tilted as they sweep the area, using hunting skills to let the building impress them – and warn them as to what type of people they're dealing with. "How did someone like Bethany Salron get involved with the lycans?" Sam thinks aloud. "Compared to the other victims, she doesn't fit."

"What, cause she's not living in some shitty apartment?" Dean asks. "Yeah, I get what you're saying. A woman living here doesn't seem like the desperate type, unless they've got those desperate housewives going around here." He smiles, and shakes his head. "Man, have you _seen_ the shit they do?"

"When do you find time to watch TV?" asks Sam, incredulous.

"When your lightweight ass is asleep."

Sam's comeback's interrupted by the ding of an arriving elevator. The doors slide open to reveal a carpeted elevator, and with skeptical eyes, they enter, Sam pressing 3.

"Maybe if you didn't make me drink – "

"Hey, I don't _make_ you do anything. You do that all on your own."

Sam growls, frustrated, but that's normal when dealing with his brother and things outside the realm of hunting. Despite spending most of their lives living out of the same room, they've turned out vastly different and the gulf between them is sometimes hard to breach.

Riding three floors is short. The doors open on a hallway with the same carpet as in the lobby downstairs, more gold and money surrounding them as they scope out apartment 317. Ten feet away, Dean notices the door's ajar, and motions in that sign language usually reserved for men in war for Sam to stop. There's no reason for the door to be unlocked and open during the day, giving them enough pause to pull guns from waistbands of faded jeans and approach slowly.

Positioned on each side of the door, Dean gives the count, then pushes open the door with the barrel of his gun and peeks his head around the doorframe.

"Uh, hello? Anyone here?" he calls into the silent apartment.

The lycans could be watching, could be waiting, and Sam doesn't want to take any chances. He follows after Dean, pushing the door open wider, and takes a step into the room.

And feels the cold iron of a gun pressed against his neck.

"Take another step, and I'll waste him," says a voice.

Dean freezes. "Freakin' great."


End file.
